


Kanaya Has A Mental Breakdown

by eldritchIncendiary



Category: Homestuck
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, but shES FINE, hair dye is a thing, i dont let you see the end result, i wrote this so late at night and i havent slept in a few days, if this is bad im so sorry, it ends on a very anticlimactic note, kanaya has a mental breakdown, my mom would be disappointed if she knew how the internet worked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchIncendiary/pseuds/eldritchIncendiary
Summary: Karkat has boy troubles. Kanaya has girl troubles. They have very different ways of dealing with things, and it ends with Kanaya dying her entire head a new color.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Kudos: 16





	Kanaya Has A Mental Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

> If you bother to read the tags, you'll know I was VERY tired when I wrote this. Like I was half asleep by the end. I had to cut it short because I was about to fall asleep on my computer. I didn't both proofreading or rereading this is general, I was just like "Fuck it, I'm posting." and here we are.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you’ve been playing with fire for the last few weeks, metaphorically speaking. Literally speaking, you’ve been testing the waters when it comes to your human best friend, Dave. No, that’s another metaphor, shit. What you’re trying (and failing) to say is that you’re not sure what the situation is between you and the human in question. He’s been terrible about blurring the lines between quadrants and your mind has become all muddled and confused.

Because you’re so muddled and confused, you turn to the only troll you know won’t give you a headache over the whole thing. The problem is, she’s almost always with Rose, Dave’s ecto-biological sister (it’s a long story that makes your head spin when you try to recall it in detail). Today though, you’ve caught her on an off day, and she yanked you into her respite block the moment you knocked on her door. Judging by the state of the room, she’d spent her morning alchemizing a textbook mental breakdown starter kit. You grab a bottle of lavender colored hair dye off of the floor, glancing between it and your friend, who is, to say the very least, an absolute mess.

“I can’t do this anymore Karkat! She’s driving me absolutely mad and I have no idea how to react!” You aren’t entirely sure who she’s talking about, seeing as the meteor is dominated mostly by girls, but you have a pretty good idea. “How can someone so intelligent be so fucking dense?!” Kanaya grips your shoulders, shaking you lightly. Her eyes are wild, matching the unkempt state of literally everything else in her room.

“Rose…?” You push for clarification and she drops down onto the bed (Rose insisted she sleep in one instead of in a pile) with a loud groan.

“That’s only half of it!” She sits up, hands balled into fists around the plush blanket tossed haphazardly on top of the mattress. “Not only is she not recognizing a single one of my advances, it feels like she’s only asking about quadrants so she can start making her own on fucking Vriska-” You decide it’s time to step in and shut her up because she won’t do it on her own.

“Kanaya, for the love of gog, shut the fuck up and think for once. When have Rose and Vriska even talked aside from fuckin-- I don’t know, those meetings you guys insist on holding? And even then they’re always butting heads--” Kanaya wails into her arm.

“The ideal pitch romance! And she hasn’t even considered being flushed with me!” You want to slap her, but you don’t. Not the time, Karkat, violence can wait until later. “I don’t know what to do so here’s what I’m going to do!” Kanaya jumps up and thrusts a plain, paint covered t-shirt into your hands. “Change your shirt, you’re helping me dye my hair!”

“Like hell I am, I don’t know what to do with this shit.”

“NEITHER DO I. FUCKING CHANGE ALREADY.” Her voice nearly echoes off of the metal walls, and even though you really don’t want to, you slip off the sweater you were already wearing. You struggle to get the shirt Kanaya handed you right side out before tugging it over your head. It’s three sizes too big on you, so you’re pretty much swimming in it. Kanaya pulls you into the bathroom, using her other arm to drag a chair in. She sets down the chair and drops into it with a thump, crossing one leg over the other the minute she’s settled in.

“You have the dye?” Kanaya seems at least a little bit thankful that you’re agreeing to do this, not that she gave you much of a choice in the matter. She nods, sweeping pretty much everything off of the counter and slamming various dye kits down in place of other toiletries. Her hair is pretty tangled so you reach for a brush instead.

“I don’t feel like panicking over girls right now,” Kanaya sighs, letting herself breathe while you brush the knots out of her hair. “What about you? Is Dave as unbearable as you insisted he’d be?” Your shoulders stiffen when she says his name, even though you literally came here to talk about him in the first place.

“Worse,” you groan, and she smirks at you. “What? Why are you looking at me like that, all I said was he was unbearable.” She tilts her head back to make eye contact, even though you’re both situated in front of a mirror.

“So you’re flushed then?” You give her hair one good yank. “I knew it- OW! Jegus, you don’t have to pull so hard!” You roll your eyes, going back to running the brush through her hair.

“I am not flushed for him, just to be perfectly clear,” she doesn’t believe that for a second and she shouldn’t, “he’s just… weird. I have no idea what the hell’s going on.” You set the brush down, switching it out for a fine toothed comb instead. 

“That makes two of us,” Kanaya huffs before becoming distracted by colored bottles of dye. “What color do you think I should do?”

“You’d probably look better in red, I don’t fuckin know. You’re the one who knows more about that kind of shit. Now hand me some bleach, your hair’s too dark for that shit.” She complies, handing you the bowl of bleach that’s leaking fumes that burn your eyes. “This shit smells awful.”

“I kind of like how it smells,” Kanaya muses as you start putting the bleach in her hair. It kind of burns to touch it so you aren’t sure how she’ll feel about having it rubbed into her scalp like any regular soap. “I once walked in while Rose was dying Dave’s hair. The entire room smelled like the stuff.” Your eyes water just thinking about it. Or maybe that’s just the bleach. “Is it supposed to sting?”

“Uhh, maybe? I don’t know, it’s stinging my hands too.” She shrugs it off when you say that. You get the solution all over her head and into her hair and immediately move to wash the stuff off of your hands. Your skin isn’t peeling off but the nail polish Rose put on your hands the other day certainly is. You’ll touch them up later when you have the time.

“I hear you and Dave have claimed the common room couch for your own.” You probably flush bright red at that, and a quick glance at the mirror tells you that your face is more red than those stupid god tier pajamas Dave insists on wearing all the time. “I’m not hearing any denial,” Kanaya sing-songs and your face only brightens. Or darkens? It gets more red, you don’t fucking know.

“Bullshit, there was no claiming. It’s just that nobody else fucking sits there.”

“We were under the impression that you and Dave had taken full custody of it. We didn’t want to invade your space.” There’s something about the tone she takes on that only embarrasses you further. “This is really starting to burn, ow,” Kanaya moves to scratch at her scalp, but you stop her short of doing so.

“Give it a few more minutes, it’s a dumpster fire right now.”

“There’s no guarantee that it’ll get any better though.”

“Are you doubting me?”

“Constantly. So why did you come in here?” The question barely registers until you think about what she just said.

“What do you mean?” She frowns at you, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You knocked on my door looking like you had something to say, and you never got the chance to say it. What was it?” Shit, she’s right, but now you can’t really remember what you came in here to talk about other than how much Strider sucks.

Actually, that just reminded you exactly what you came in here to talk about.

“I think… I think I might have the smallest amount of pale feelings for Dave?” Kanaya raises an eyebrow. “And pitch.” Both eyebrows shoot up at that. “And maybe the uh, tiniest amount of flushed?” Confusion crosses her features, and you can hear the question before she even asks it.

“How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know, Kanaya, the lines are so blurry right now I can’t even see them. Dave just has this weird way of… of…” talking? Acting? “He doesn’t get troll romance in the slightest, you know? I’ve tried to explain that there’s a very nuanced, complicated system that makes up the quadrants, but he doesn’t fucking learn! And on top of that, he keeps sending out all of these mixed signals. Like one minute he’s holding me and running his fingers through my hair and the next he’s mocking me and pushing me around! It makes no fucking sense!” Kanaya nods, taking a deep breath before letting her sage-like words of wisdom go into the world.

“I think we can both agree humans are incredibly dumb then,” she stands to stretch out her back, probably sore from sitting in the same place for too long. “It sounds like he’s doing things outside of how we’re used to, though. Have you said anything about pursuing being in a quadrant with him?” You groan to yourself when she asks. Of course you have, but Strider’s such a dumbass he interpreted it entirely incorrectly.

“I tried suggesting pale at one point. He had to ask me which one that was six times before he said ‘oh we’re already bros, dude’ fucking dumbass.”

“But you love him.”

“Love is such a strong word.” Kanaya purses her lips and crosses her arms in that no bullshit way you’ve only seen her use with Eridan when he was back on his bullshit. “I’m more… fond. I can’t stand him nine times out of ten, he pushes my buttons and he knows it, but he’s… sweet. In his own weird, semi ironic kind of way.” Kanaya nods at this, probably taking notes so she can tell Rose about this later. You’ve given up trying to keep it secret. If you tell one of them, both of them end up knowing about it at some point. You notice Kanaya’s hair has gotten a fair bit lighter, to the point where she looks like she’s taking style tips from Strider’s book. “We should probably wash that stuff out of your hair.”

“The showerhead detaches, I’ll grab a towel.”

“Is there anything specific I should put in so your hair doesn’t decide to abandon ship?”

“There’s a bottle of conditioner by the sink.” You’re concerned by the size of the bottle of conditioner but you can see which bottle she means. By the time you’ve got everything set up, she’s leaning over the edge of the tub with a towel draped over her back. Ye of so little faith in your ability to rinse her hair without making a mess. You just hope she isn’t ticklish.

She is, shockingly enough. You really didn’t think she would be. Still, despite the fact that the entire time you were rinsing and conditioning her hair she was trying and failing not to laugh, you got the bleach out pretty quickly. Her hair is, for now, a weird straw color that doesn’t suit her in the slightest, but you’re mostly glad it worked and bleached evenly. You were worried for a second that it wouldn’t and Kanaya would have to shave her head. It probably wouldn’t look terrible, but it’s still not the ideal outcome.

“Holy shit, we did it,” Kanaya heaves out a breathy sigh, but she doesn’t look upset. She looks really happy with it, actually. “It doesn’t look amazing, and we’re still definitely dying it a new color, but we did it!” You’re just happy she still has hair to dye. This whole thing could have gone terribly wrong in hindsight. Neither of you really know what you’re doing. “You did pretty good, actually. Remind me to call you next time I have a mental breakdown.” You want to tell her no way, but the only other people she would ever trust with her hair are either the reason she’s having a mental breakdown, or are flat out impossible to make conversation with without the conversation being derailed in an instant. You would know. Dave has this way of switching subjects so fast you get whiplash.

“So, what do we do now?” Kanaya considers for a moment before grabbing a hairdryer and plugging it into the wall. 

“I’m going to dry my hair and we can figure out where to go from there.” You nod and sit down on the counter in the only spot cluttered with hair dye and other stuff. Kanaya fires up the hair dryer and for a moment, that’s the only sound you can hear. The hair dryer really is super loud, like, unnecessarily so. The hair dryer whirs as Kanaya turns it off for a moment, setting it down to rest her arm. “Thanks for helping me with this, Karkat. Really.” 

“It’s no problem. Have you decided what you want yet?” Her eyes scan the dye kits while she runs a brush through her hair. Her eyes land on a bottle of dye that, funnily enough, is a bright, candy red the same color as one of her favorite skirts. And your blood, but you aren’t here to dwell on that kind of thing. Too heavy considering you came here to complain about your best friend, who is slowly but surely eating away at your brain like a parasite the more you think about him. 

“I like this one. I’ve got more bottles of it than any other color, actually.” She eyes you for a second in that same way Vriska would eye anything before inevitably screwing something up. It’s not a good look on her. Mischief means dangerous things when it involves any girl ever. “You know, Karkat, I don’t have to be the only one getting a new look today. You’ve already done a whole lot for me…”

“No. No! I’m not letting you dye my head some weird color.”

“Not your whole head! Just, like, a streak.” The image of you with streaks in your hair regardless of color is almost enough to make you chuckle. Almost. “Stop shaking your head, Karkat, it’s a good idea.” That actually does make you laugh.

“No it isn’t though! I’ll look ridiculous, seriously.” She rolls her eyes.

“You don’t seem to care about looking ridiculous whenever you’re hanging out with Dave in front of anyone else.” How dare she? “Come on, you know I’m right.”

“Fuck you Kanaya!” She laughs, full on laughs at you, and you can’t help but laugh with her. “Is there any actual way I’m getting out of this, anyway?”

“Not in the slightest. You’re letting me do something to your hair, even if it’s just cutting it. You’ve been overdue for a trim for a few perigrees now.” She’s not wrong, actually. Your hair is getting pretty long, to the point where you could probably tie it back if you really had to. You probably should have done that before you started, actually. “Come on. Please?” She, not even kidding, bats her fucking eyelashes at you. Manipulative cunt.

“ARGHADKFJKLAJFK fine. But only after your hair is done.” She snorts.

“Did you just verbally keysmash? How did you do that?”

“It’s a talent. Now sit your ass down, we’re gonna see if we can fix this mess.” She does as you tell her, reaching back and handing a bottle a bright red dye to you. You don’t question it, instead getting to work. “Jegus, this is so bright, it kind of hurts my eyes.” 

“Are you sure the fumes aren’t just getting to you?” She watches your hands move through the mirror, fingers tapping on her legs anxiously as the dye seeps into her hair. “Was this a mistake?”

“Probably,” you say, and she glares at you. “I’m just saying, you did this on a whim in the middle of a mental breakdown, but we’re too far in to back out now. Mistake or not, we’re going through with this.” She nods slightly, careful not to jerk your hands around too much in the process. “Hey, were you planning on shaving this bit down again?” You nudge the buzzed down part of her hair, where she’d given herself an undercut before the humans even arrived on the meteor. She got bored and Tavros just so happened to have his clippers with him. Put two and two together and you get a spa day with Kanaya and Tavros. It was an odd day for everyone bearing witness to it.

“You know, Dave asked me that a few days ago. He offered to help me out with it. Did you know he cuts his own hair?” That hardly comes as a shock to you, actually. You’ve noticed more than once how quickly his hair grows. He’s already in that stage where most of his hair is that dark brown color you still can’t believe is natural. It just looks so fake on him. You’ve gotten way too used to seeing him with blond hair. “It’s starting to look good, actually. Wow.” The color is turning out darker than it probably should have, but she’s not wrong. Of course, you won’t know what it’s really going to look like until her hair is washed and dried.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait for this to be done?” You ask, and she considers for a moment.

“Let’s do an hour to be safe.” You nod going to wash the dye off of your hands. There’s still stains on your fingers when you’re done. You probably should have worn gloves. “Maybe scrub… harder?”

“You just watched me wash my hands for six minutes. I think I’m stuck like this,” you groan, hopping back up onto the counter. “Eight sweeps I’ve been trying to hide my blood color, now look at me.”

“It’s great progress to be sure. Accidental progress, but progress nonetheless.” You roll your eyes at that, but you’re pleased to find the red stains don’t bother you as much now as they probably would have a sweep ago. You know when this whole SGRUB fiasco started, just the sight of anything red on your skin would’ve given you a panic attack. Now it just makes you uncomfortable. “How long has it been already?”

“Like fifteen minutes.” She groans, suddenly very aware of how slow time is passing. Where’s Dave when you need him, huh? “Could I ask for some advice? You seem pretty on top of things when it comes to anything romantic.”

“Anything that isn’t my own life, you mean.” She shrugs.

“You’ve been handling it pretty well, in my opinion.”

“Sure as fuck doesn’t feel like it.”

“Okay, think what you want. Still I want to just ask, see what you think…” You prompt her to continue, even if taking your advice isn’t the best idea. “How am I supposed to talk to her? I wouldn’t know what to say, I might mess up. What should I do?”

“I mean… you can’t mess up if you’re just being honest. You’re overthinking this really. You’ve spent pretty much every day with her, you just talk to her the way you always do.”

“But this is different.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You just think it does.” Like it or not, you have a point. You should listen to yourself more often. You definitely won’t, but you should.

“So your advice is to just… talk to her? Like normal?”

“I mean, you asked. It’s probably not good advice, but it’s what I would do.” Fucking liar. Kanaya nods to herself, even though you’re pretty sure she’s thinking your advice is total shit, which it is. 

“We should probably start washing the dye out.”

You look at her hair for a moment, which has lightened. Not by much, but the red is brighter still. 

“Yeah, probably.”

**Author's Note:**

> Are they out of character?... Possibly. The fic itself was six pages long. I drew little sketches of the aftermath of this fic on paper, I might redraw them digitally and post them on my Tumblr. I might not. Who knows? Certainly not me.


End file.
